On Thursday, September 22, I went to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, to hear David Robinson, a coffee farmer in Tanzania. He is the last of the children of Jackie Robinson, the legendary African-American baseball player and indomitable civil rights activist of the forties and fifties, who passed away in 1972. Visiting Ethiopia as a teenager, David fell in love with Africa and, in the early eighties, decided to settle in a village called Bara, tucked away in the Mbozi district of southwestern Tanzania. He introduced himself to the curious village elders, telling them that he was an African from somewhere in Africa--even though he didn't know where--and that he had been taken from the continent and was lost for several centuries in slavery in far away America. Now he had decided to come back home, and he wanted land to establish a farm.
The villagers showed him a large area and he set about establishing a coffee farm, creating, together with fellow villagers, a cooperative society called Sweet Unity Farms. David talked about the activities of the cooperative farm, the challenges, and the lessons gained along the way.
He talked about not only the work on the farms, but also the business side of things--which is rife with challenges. This includes marketing and selling Sweet Unity Farms coffee around the world. Though located in a rural place, Sweet Unity Farms seeks ways to establish itself in a global market dominated by big multinational corporations.The photo on the left features David, Limi Simbakalia, a Tanzanian student at St. Olaf College, where I teach, and me.
There is much information online about David Robinson and Sweet Unity Farms, such as this wonderful article. I have been reading about David Robinson for some years and, in the process, a little about Jackie Robinson. After meeting David, however, I have been learning more about his father and gaining a good sense of the stature and significance of this legendary sportsman and civil rights activist.
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